NETenergy hopes grant will heat up thermal battery project

Chicago-based NETenergy has won several prizes that have helped fund its development of a thermal battery that will store energy to help large buildings control their cooling costs.

Now, its latest win will help it move the battery out of the development stage, Chief Operating Officer Mike Pintar said.

“When it comes to energy, there are really unique skill sets that aren’t available in the marketplace,” he said. “It’s not just like, ‘Oh, we need to find new developers.’ We have to find someone who has very specific knowledge.”

That outside push will come from the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator, a five-year, $10 million private-public partnership aimed at accelerating environmental technologies. Wells Fargo selected NETenergy this month in its second class of grant recipients.

NETenergy and five other early-stage companies are set to receive up to $250,000 each from Wells Fargo and consultation from the federal energy lab during this round of the program.

NETenergy, a four-person operation, was the only Chicago-based startup selected in this round.

The lab's experts and facilities will help NETenergy sync its thermal battery with buildings it is meant to cool. The battery — in theory — will be integrated with an air conditioning system. The AC system will run at night, when electricity is cheap, and charge a thermal battery, which will then discharge energy during the day when electricity is priced higher. The goal is to reduce the cost of cooling in commercial buildings, which are subject to additional charges during peak cooling demand times.

After a third party tested the prototype, Pintar said the product is ready to move past development and into reality. The money and expertise the federal lab provides will help NETenergy build a full-scale test system in a commercial building.

When the companies chosen for the incubator graduate, they will be eligible to test their products in a Wells Fargo building, said Ashley Grosh, vice president in the environmental affairs department at Wells Fargo.